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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808141">let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mussings_over_tea/pseuds/mussings_over_tea'>mussings_over_tea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Said Do You Feel It When You Touch Me, Said Do You Feel It When You Cut Me [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tennis RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Study, JUST, M/M, and him marinating in the stagnation of his broken ego, and i feel nothing has changed and we are back to last year, how many swan songs i can write for this boy?, kinda an essay in the fic, mostly himself about growing changing maturing and learning priorities lol, so it turned into a triptych and yep chnge drastically from porn to, to boost himself up some more and lie to everyone, waiting for drunken lives to return soon until he finds another victim, we will see considering March of madness begins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:22:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808141</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mussings_over_tea/pseuds/mussings_over_tea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." or Nick is stuck on the attic and Thanasi chooses the sun.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thanasi Kokkinakis/Nick Kyrgios</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Said Do You Feel It When You Touch Me, Said Do You Feel It When You Cut Me [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2186838</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*</p><p>Nick’s at the front door of his house, wearing a jersey, a ball in his hand and boyish expression on his face, like he didn’t grow his thick scruff, eyes more hostile now than shy or playful, that devastated brow giving him the look of permanent arrogant challenge, earrings casting distracting flares away from any scraps of exposure he might let out.</p><p>Like million years ago, when he would visit without announcing himself, ask Pan : ‘Is Thanasi home?’, Pan would chuckle in response with ‘No, he got a job selling shoes and he finally moved out,’ and they would rush on a beach or on a nearby basketball court to listen to rap music, shoot some hoops and feel like Kings of the world.</p><p>(The bracelet is stuck at the bottom of his drawer, untouched. It’s been weeks since they talked. Exactly the pattern that follows. Exactly the thing Nick does. Thanasi preoccupied with life, training, getting sponsor deal cleared, wrapping up courses he’s begun but had to suspend because tennis has always been the purpose life circled its way around).</p><p>But it’s not like then. Nick’s face is thinner, less earnest, more masked. (Thanasi catches him often guarding himself, when he used to be an open book of chapters of earnest impulsivity. Now, it’s often hostile detachment in place of it.) There’s a whole camouflage of aesthetics, too, he hides behind, where he used to never think of his hair messily curled, growing in all directions, old, second-hand Wu-Tang sleeveless Nill bought on the local bazaar, for money saved after her latest hustle with busking tables. He’s lean, tall and sexy, moving with swaying confidence, casting gleeful, seductive gazes, like he’s performing the lure all the time. When he used to smile abashed or mumbled incomprehensible responses, considered a grumpy, fat weirdo by too many people that didn’t know him.</p><p>Thanasi for a moment feels like he’s fallen into the timeline of <em>then</em>, seeing him now, changed so much, standing at his doorway, an unfitting piece of what used to be a whole composition that was their life.</p><p>It hurts. It aches. Like he’s seeing a ghost of someone dear, who died prematurely, before living his life the way it could be, it should be, it might be.</p><p>“Wanna shoot some hoops and have your ass kicked for good old time’s sake, Kokki?” Nick smirks, but it’s hollow, not playful. And Thanasi doesn’t ask him what is he doing here. He’s used to this. Random visits. Or phonecalls. Texting out of the blue. Quick fucks after a clubbing night. As if Nick recharges himself this way. Or maybe tries to return to the beginning.</p><p>When he was liberated with who he is, wants to be and dreams about. Not forced behind false flares of the spectacle he creates around himself to hide behind.</p><p>But what does Thanasi know at this point.</p><p>“You wish, Kygs. Bring it on,” he says in return (thinks he sounds like <em>then</em>, like that young boy challenging his best friend for a game of hoops or play station run, feels like he’s wearing oversized shirt they shared with Nick then too) and does follow him (like he would then, like he will always?)</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Hanging out with Nick always takes him back. Whether they stream together, whether they club together, listen to the music in the quiet isolation of one of their rooms like million years ago and maybe Thanasi would touch his hand one day and maybe Nick didn’t withdraw it and maybe they made out that day for the first time but never lost sight of what really matters<em>: I always have your back and this doesn’t change.</em> Whether it’s playing tennis and training together, feeling invincible, like the future belongs to them. Even if the pain soon followed and Thanasi’s body crumbled under the weight of the brightest talent of Australia and Thanasi felt crippled more than he felt infinite. The separation came. But never entirely. Because they would always come back to this. This bubble of shelter of their togetherness from before were they could find the purpose, peace, reassurance and each other.</p><p>Thanasi knows what this is. It’s that place in the attic with a box of old posters, toys, holiday souvenirs and old pictures you keep hidden to go back to and remember how life was easier, better, because more carefree and pure. He knows melancholy. Reminiscence. Revisiting special corners in your heart, safe haven in your brain. When you were an immortal child in the kingdom of forever glory. But Thanasi also has a grasp of what difference the now makes. How sentiment is not despair after long lost innocence but a fuel to grow and move forward. Thanasi lost so much, thinking about trying to recover it would bury him under the impossible what ifs. Thanasi can’t patch up his life from these past chances. He will never be whole this way and he’s already a scrambling work in progress.</p><p>Thanasi is sure it is not the case for Nick at all.</p><p>Nick has never moved on from that kingdom. And this is why he’s here. Why he returns. Thanasi is a doorway to that kingdom. When they share old jokes on streams, when they order food to each other because they know the habits so well, when they talk in language that no one understands but them and when they fuck like almost intimate lovers knowing the map of the skin by heart.</p><p>Nick is on a mission to recreate all flashes of the past into the perfect, whole image of <em>now</em>.</p><p>Nick doesn’t understand that it’s like patching up something living from dead pieces.</p><p>It shouldn’t be done. It can’t be done.</p><p>Thanasi still indulges over and over again. And so he does now, too.</p><p>They play few competitive rounds on a nearby dilapidated court, with walls covered in graffiti (there are marks there, with rap lyrics they smeared like rebellious stances at life back in the day, he thinks or hopes)  and the cracks in the concrete all the boys from the neighbourhood made with their desperation to outrun the problems and get to the ideals. He wonders which of those would fit perfectly well to his shoe. Which one to Nick’s? Neither. Neither Nick nor Thanasi from <em>then</em> are here to recreate the marks.</p><p>Thanasi thinks Nick would still try to fit into the marks they left there and expect them to match.</p><p>Nick is loud and full of colours and sounds, as always. Runs a commentary, throws in some teasing lines, shouts in triumph or groans in defeat. His voice is lower and raspier. Body, taller, larger and stronger. (His body never rejected him. On the contrary, it grew into a weapon he himself neglected. Something Thanasi could draw spite from. But never did). Other than that, Thanasi could close his eyes and find himself in that different timeline.</p><p>When his body was whole.</p><p>Just as Nick’s brain.</p><p>It’s easy to lose yourself in the feeling. Move together like pieces of memory to make up that sacred, innocent whole.</p><p>Thanasi can understand Nick. To some extent. For chasing the past with all its easy options and burdenless joy.</p><p>“Advantage, Kygsy,” Nick chuckles, taking the ball midair from Thanasi and scoring yet another point. Mocking tennis terminology. Applying it to life with awful lot of affectionate habit.</p><p>“Losers keepers though, right?” Thanasi smacks Nick’s ass playfully. With an innuendo. Even though he knows Nick is not here for this. Nick doesn’t chase the high of sex that could make him forget about the now this time. Nick is actively seeking the past to inhabit and remember and feel infinite and free and whole.</p><p>Patched up from dead pieces.</p><p>“In your dreams, baby,” Nick manages to get the ball again and is way ahead.</p><p>Thanasi’s head is not in the game. Not really. He sees the manic way Nick tries to drown himself in the experience. As if bringing back every inch of an echo of the past. Like he’s thrown into the film footage with himself there and he becomes that character, that past himself and goes through his favourite reruns.</p><p>It’s a different kind of an oblivion than bodies rocking together in maddening pleasure.</p><p>It’s an oblivion of being stuck in false sense of safety that is familiar because relived.</p><p>“Okay, this sucks, bro,” Nick stops the game, shooting one last hoop, leaving the ball bounce away into the edge of the court and facing Thanasi. “Why do you always go for the same game, dude? Like, I see your steps way ahead, I know what you’re about to do. Since when lame routine is a strategy?”</p><p>Thanasi has been trying to go past him in the exact same pattern of moves, indeed. He thinks he’s been doing it subconsciously. A lesson of sorts. Or being stuck on the loop of repeated sequence of events with Nick maybe too.</p><p>“Nah, you’re just that good, Kygsy,” he winks, commenting lightly. Knowing what’s about to come. Knowing what’s already here.</p><p>Nick feels cornered in his journey to safe place of forgetting <em>now</em> and remembering <em>then</em>. Aggression and anger always follow fear with him. But Thanasi’s been there and done that with him many times. Being on the attic is good for few moments. Cosy, quiet, peaceful. But there’s no sunlight there. There’s dust and stagnation. Pieces never moved. Pieces stuck in one place, gathering that vail of what passed, what’s never coming back. Thanasi has had enough of being stuck in stagnation for too long.</p><p>“Why do you repeat the same play? Do you think I won’t fall for it this time? It’s doing the same thing and thinking it’s gonna get you somewhere else. It’s insane.”</p><p>Thanasi lets the grunted words hang in the air for a moment. For the sound and the meaning to combine symbolically. A parallel. A lesson. He subconsciously designed for Nick. Like a trap. Making him lash out. As he is now.</p><p>“Yep. It is, Nick,” then he says. Using his name. Calling for the real him.  Looking into Nick’s eyes. Waiting for him to catch up. Waiting for an outburst.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a very definition of madness, my friend. According to Einstein. But, I would say, in general. In evidence, too.”</p><p>Thanasi patiently waits for fear to kick in and make Nick run away.</p><p>It doesn’t take long.</p><p>“And you’re mister fucking scholar now? Fuck that, Thanasi,” he breaks the eye contact, as the mask starts to crack, the fear in his eyes bleeding through with hounded expression and he’s physically running away, too. From sunlight back to the attic. Abruptly marching to a broken bench nearby, back turned to Thanasi. Back turned to the entire world.</p><p>To <em>now</em>.</p><p>Thanasi betrayed him.</p><p>Thanasi stopped recreating the sequences from the past.</p><p>Thanasi reminded him that this is not real. The boxes are covered in dust, closed with a lid, put away in the corner of this place. </p><p>This is now. Here and now. It’s full of sunlight but also storms and rains. But it’s alive. Not patched up pieces of past, long gone or dead.</p><p>He approaches Nick. Even if the air seems to ripple with hostility, as he sits, too large, too broad for that small, broken bench they used to eat lunch on, Nill made for them in between basketball sessions, listening to music on a first MP3 player they got and shared.</p><p>Like everything.</p><p>Things, food, memories and then touches.</p><p>There is a thick volume of history there. Between them.  Album with photographs, people used to make. Now it’s all on the phones. Lost in the wires of discs. Lost in the passage of rushing time. On that attic, Nick guards so severely. So desperately. And Thanasi threatens to ruin it. Show him the layer of dust on pages or the lid of the box.</p><p>He still dares to touch. The nape of Nick’s neck. Hot to the touch (he always runs hot), wet from that rush he’s been giving himself to (escaping from now, running to then) and now stiff, a wall of protection against any intrusion.</p><p>But he doesn’t shake off Thanasi’s hand.</p><p>“Why did you wanna come here, Nick,” he doesn’t call him with that other name. That other name is a pretence. Enchantment transporting him to that attic where he’s hiding. Thanasi doesn’t want him to hide. Nick never has to with him.</p><p>So, Thanasi asks the question, knowing perfectly well he won’t be getting an answer, because an answer would be admission. Allowing the intrusion to take over the attic in his mind. And expose it with all the dust and stagnation.</p><p>Sure enough. Nick has only barked defense for him.</p><p>“Clearly. A fucking waste of my time.”</p><p>Thanasi trails the palm down Nick’s back to take a narrow spot beside him. Like <em>then</em>. They only need an earbud shared between them. A box of sushi settled on a bench, also shared (sometimes their fingers would meet as they reach for the same piece and it was familiar and reassuring and didn’t make them flustered, confused or embarrassed).</p><p>So, it’s like <em>then</em>. But it is not. There is neither a box of sushi or burdenless familiarity here anymore.</p><p>“Do you think there’s that graffiti we draw here after we got drunk for the first time and your mom grounded your for the next 3 days but it only worked for half an afternoon, cos she’s so soft for you, Kygsy?” Thanasi nudges him playfully, chuckling at the memory and sneaking glances at Nick’s slowly softening expression.</p><p>It always works.</p><p>Take him back to the attic. Remind him the shelter is intact.</p><p>To some extent.</p><p>“Did you mean soft for <em>you</em>. She never believed you were the one who bought that six pack. Also a bunch of playboys she found in my drawer,” and Nick’s mouth is sharing that chuckle with Thanasi, a wave of memories now coaxing him in, spreading with safe familiarity of <em>then</em>.</p><p>Thanasi wonders if there are their initials carved on a tree for one of Thanasi’s birthdays. With crowns drawn above K’s. And promise of them conquering the world. But together. Always together.</p><p>A promise of something else. Of them always coming back to each other, too. Except, Thanasi thinks, not like this. Not like this.</p><p>A doorway to the past to bring back what’s no longer here. To never move forward.</p><p>“I think there’s a bunch of graffiti covering it, now. This bench is fucking small. We barely fit here. And I don’t even know how people play hoops here anymore with the concrete cracked under how many shoes? How many matches played?” Thanasi still pokes, after initial peace offering. Even though they’ve been here before many times and Nick never budges. He guards the attic almost fiercely. And it translates to his entire life.</p><p>There’s silence that follows. No more ripples of hostile energy coming off him. He doesn’t move away either, with their thighs touching (sometimes it would happen, later on, when they got older, and it spread with fire in Thanasi, with that spark of need that never ceased sizzling inside him for Nick. Even now, when it’s about his heart, their hearts, Thanasi wants him. So much. The first time Nick responded, with hand shyly moving upwards, asking for permission, Thanasi thought he would never feel like this with anyone again. And he didn’t. He never did. It was always only that intense, only that overwhelming with Nick).</p><p>But now, it’s about healing. Finding courage to move forward. Or escaping to the beginning. Which one it will be today?</p><p>“Why are you doing this, Thanasi?” Nick asks, very quiet. Defeated. Doesn’t look at Thanasi. Starts drumming his fingers on his thigh though. Anxiety and feeling hounded still there.</p><p>Thanasi laces their fingers together then. A gesture that often brought Nick solace and comfort. Grounding. Sheltering. Something they haven’t done for a while.</p><p>Nick lets him.</p><p>Their fingers match. Not for the first time Thanasi thinks the what if he rejected a long time ago. As figment of impossible alternative universe. Nick still kind of brings the possibility back.</p><p>“You don’t wear it,” he means the bracelet.</p><p>“Neither do you,” Thanasi plays with his pinky and doesn’t sound accusatory at all.</p><p>Nick does. Everything must be perfect in his vision. Not a box out of place. Not an ounce of dust visible.</p><p>“I don’t need to wear it to remember what it means,” Nick and his big words. And his noisy confessions. And his loud statements. With shiny symbols, distracting flares, and the truth still hiding beneath it all somewhere.</p><p>“And what does it mean, Kygsy?” Thanasi this time looks at him. Into him. Demanding him to confront the truth that is different for either of them.</p><p>Thanasi is living in the now, with prospects of the future.</p><p>Nick clings to <em>then</em> and pretends the now he’s praising in his hedonistic declarations is not a recreation of that kingdom of childhood for him.</p><p>“That we will always have each other back. That we will be there for each other,” Nick sounds almost offended. Betrayed. Now pulling his hand away from under Thanasi’s soft touch. Escaping again.</p><p>“We are, aren’t we, Kygs?” Thanasi smirks in provocation. Edges the truth out there in the open.  Because it’s a temporary arrangement at this point. When it fits for Nick to recreate his scenarios of <em>safe then</em>. When Nick is drawn to Thanasi through either sentiment to fuel  his feeling of carefree or a need for quick fuck to forget about the now. The truth about them is different for either of them. Thanasi could be that anchor Nick seeks. But Nick doesn’t want to pause in any now and build any future. Thanasi moves forward. Nick drags them all the way back to stagnation.</p><p>“You’re better as that fuck buddy, anyway,” Nick can hurt with words so much and he doesn’t even realise it. Thanasi has thick skin by now, though. The wounds are superficial. His body endured so much more. Real burden of pain, disability, crumbling under weakness and powerlessness. <em>This</em>, doesn’t affect him anymore.</p><p>A little boy kicking an adult for knowing better. For daring to spoil his fun. His island of forever holiday where he’s not hold responsible for anything. There’s dancing in the night, drinking colorful drinks, skinny-dipping and never thinking of tomorrow.</p><p>Thanasi never got it why Nick didn’t settle in in the Bahamas. Tangible paradise of forever freedom.</p><p>“Of course I am,” Thanasi responds in bitter chuckle, reading between the lines. It’s about playing along to the fantasy. It’s about not ruining the balance of the boxes in the attic. It’s about being that perfect element of /then/, whatever Nick needs from /then/.</p><p>The silence between them is still something comfortable. Something they’ve learned to be in for a long time. Sometimes stargazing. Other times doing their own thing on their phones or with tennis equipment. Sharing snacks, while having Marvel marathons. Silence of mouths, but language of bodies. In one space. Belonging. Like now. Nick’s finger starts tracing patterns on Thanasi’s thigh. Apologetic gesture of a kid drawing in sand a map to the dreams that slip away.</p><p>“When did you grow up, Thanasi?”</p><p>There it is. An accusation or a genuine question for guidance. Nick probably doesn’t know himself.</p><p>“When I was stuck in not doing anything. When I was stuck in then, that was stagnation, that was nothing happening, Nick. When I realized that going forward, having a chance to do that, is a blessing, is growth. Is what life is about, dude. And it’s scary. You don’t know what’s out there. You can’t repeat familiar ways, easy patterns. But it’s also exciting. Your tennis is all about it. You never play safe. You never play with patterns. You always take chances. So, go ahead. Take chances, Nick. It’s time, my friend,” Thanasi almost pleads. Doesn’t know himself for what. It’s not his business. Not anymore. Nick is Nick. He will do what he pleases. Stuck on a wheel of the same events replayed. Reruns that has become stale. Terribly cliché. That build up for nothing but regress. Constance. Immobility.</p><p>Even though, to see him break the wheel is the most enticing spectacle. Even though, to see him take a chance always leads to events that echo on tour, that create his myth, that are the foundation for him remaining an inspiration, a star and still that story never entirely told.</p><p>For Thanasi, too.</p><p>Nick looks back, for their eyes to meet. In poignant moment of connection. Thanasi has always been Nick’s biggest fan. Thanasi watched him go out there and conquer the tour, without him, because fate is a fickle bitch. Thanasi was never spiteful. Struggle quietly. And always remained shelter for Nick to come back to to recover and remember. Who they promised each other to be.</p><p>Here, it is engraved on the ancient tree, a prophecy to be fulfilled.</p><p>Nick kisses him, then. Not a distraction. Not a smouldering prologue to their passionate oblivion. It’s a tender kiss , of apologies, of gratitude, of shame. A peck of lips, warm and gentle, Thanasi cherishes  deeply with his own mouth and commits it to his heart. Rare moments like butterflies. Also making Thanasi ache inside. Because these moments are still what ifs. Of their together, but not. Of their, in another lifetime, but not. Of both of them moving forward together to finally make the prophecy engraved on a tree happen.</p><p>But they won’t. It’s not meant to be, in the end.</p><p>Nick confirms, close to Thanasi’s mouth, in warm breath.</p><p>“Do you wanna fuck me, Kokki?”</p><p>“I always wanna fuck you, Kygs. But, no. Not now. And you don’t want it either,” he bops Nick’s nose with his finger and moves away from this space of a recreated <em>then</em>, that is nothing like <em>then</em>, not really (they kissed here, for the first time, it was clumsy, wet and desperate, but Thanasi knew, nothing will compare to this need of wanting to kiss Nick always. This is what hasn’t changed. This is what’s anchoring <em>then</em> in now). He moves away from what will never be their path together.</p><p>“Wanna watch something then?” Nick still tries, clings to that <em>then</em>. To things they would do, memories in their brains, that do feel so fresh, like it was yesterday. But it wasn’t. And  Thanasi is not going to be picking up through them on a dusty attic of boxes with Nick to reassure him in his carefree feeling of freedom.</p><p>Thanasi will not babysit that boy again.</p><p>“I have a training later on and need to wrap up some papers for the course at the uni. Sorry,” deep down he is. He is sorry. For them, for Nick. For what could have been, but will never be and the only way through it is forward. Their paths lead in the opposite directions. He turns on his foot to walk away, and adds, without really looking at Nick, knowing what power he has to drag you back to that kingdom of his. “But I’m here, if you need to go back to good old times.”</p><p>And then he moves. Away from <em>then</em>. Symbolically. Leaving Nick behind, with a whole list of things to do ahead of him, filling him up with purpose, with possibility, with finally feeling like he can and he will and so he does.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Let's ignore geography and the fact these boys don't live in the same town. So, Nick, popping in for a visit, like he's borrowing sugar from a neighbour, wouldn't work ;-)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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